Jay Evensen: On second thought...

It didn't take long after President Obama's speech Thursday for Republicans to pronounce it shovel-ready.

You may have missed the president's speech. He had to give it early in the morning to avoid a conflict with the NFL's pre-game show and various popular soap operas.

If the NFL was threatened with bankruptcy, ah, then you would see some clamoring for Washington to do something.

Two people reported seeing a cougar near the Olympus Cove community in Salt Lake County last week. There must be a joke about the upcoming BYU-Utah game in there somewhere.

If the Post Office goes out of business, what happens to all those stamp collectors? Collecting canceled emails just isn't the same.

Of course, "going postal" is a phrase with its roots in some pretty nasty and tragic shootings by disgruntled postal employees many years ago. I can understand being disgruntled. It's hard to work with a contract that guarantees you won't be laid off.

Postal employees have a guarantee against layoffs built in to their union contracts. They apparently had to settle for that because management drew the line on the demand for protection against death and all of life's little disappointments.

The Postal Service has a $9.2 billion shortfall. What's the big deal? They easily could make that up by increasing postage to $1 million for first class mail.

Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano said this week air travelers may soon be allowed to fly without removing their shoes for security checks. Finally, we won't have to be embarrassed by holes in our socks any longer.

In a debate last week, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry argued over who created the most jobs as governor. Funny, I can't remember which Utah governor created my job.

Jay Evensen is associated editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Follow him on Twitter @Jayevensen.